Telugu OTT player aha to foray into Tamil market

Popular actor Allu Arjun-backed Telugu OTT (over-the-top) player aha is set to foray into neigbhouring Tamil market by the end of the year, having amassed 1.5 million subscribers among the 50 million-plus speakers of the language in the country since its debut in March 2020.

"We are launching Tamil by the end of this year. We are evaluating between Malayalam and Kannada for a third language, as well as a non-Hindi regional language from the north as the fourth language to venture into," aha CEO Ajit Thakur said.
 
SUN Nxt, the OTT app from the stables of Sun TV Network, has a strong presence in Tamil. However, it has not invested in any original content for the platform, instead choosing to relay its TV content and films so far.

"We were quite clear that language is a big opportunity in OTT to deliver personalised entertainment. What was also clear was that we were not looking at one language. But given the competition, it was important to test the hypothesis in one market first. So we chose the market where both our promoters have a significant presence," said Thakur.

The OTT player is owned by Arha Media & Broadcasting, a joint venture between Geetha Arts and real estate business group My Home Group.

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Two more promoters -- Telugu film producer Dil Raju and actor Vijay Deverakonda -- have joined the platform, making it sufficiently funded, Thakur said without revealing any specifics. For both Tamil and Telugu, the focus is to green light local stories of the land, he added.

India’s OTT market, home to more than 40 players, is heating up with a dozen or so regional players entering the fray over the past 18 months. The southern languages have especially been attracting interest, including from larger OTT players, with Netflix even launching a separate Twitter handle for the region.

There has been a resurgence of quality content from the region which is home to four thriving film industries and a large entertainment-hungry viewership available to be tapped.

Thakur said the firm has also set up a production studio in Mumbai to work with the creative talent there as well. “OTT originals in Telugu are only 2-3 years old. But it’s been around in Mumbai for some time now. They may not be excited to just do local stories. So, we are building pan-India stories through the studio, which we will then deploy for our audience. And those are the stories we may be open at some stage to syndicate to another platform."

He said the firm is also looking at setting up a studio in Kerala.

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